Bookshelf, Chapter 1

It’s been a long time since my last post. I suppose that speaks to the nature of the grad school beast, but it bugs me. So, in order to get inspired on a quick post, I looked at some friends’ blogs. You may have read about Alicia in my style post here. She’s another grad student (in ancient history) and a fellow bookworm. Her latest post was on the contents of one of her bookshelves, and I think I’ll respond to her post with my own.

One shelf in my two bookshelves has this contents. I suppose I should mention that I have two bookshelves; one mounted on my wall which came in my room and one hastily put together from IKEA’s lesser brother, Argos, which has three shelves. (The putting together of this second bookcase is what introduced me to many of my housemates, so while I doubt it’ll last more than a year, it does have great sentimental value already.) I’ve chosen to begin with my mounted bookcase, which has one shelf of magazines and decorative elements and one shelf packed to the gills of books and various hot drink mixes (coffee, tea, hot chocolate). I should note that these are my non-academic books. Without further ado, here they are:

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

The Piano Teacher, Janice Y.K. Lee

Cleopatra’s Daughter, Michelle Moran

Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niggenegger

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak

The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende

Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson & Relin

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova

Leonardo’s Swan, Karen Essex

Sprezzatura: 50 Ways Italian Geniuses Shaped the World, Peter D’Epiro

Walking to Canterbury: A Modern Journey Through Chaucer’s Medieval England, Jerry Ellis

Rules Britannia: An Insider’s Guide to Life in the United Kingdom, Toni Summers Hargis

How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster

Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World: Nicholas Ostler

Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, Kate Fox

Knickers in a Twist: A Dictionary of British Slang, Jonathan Bernstein

The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (I just finished this yesterday!)

Okay, so maybe they’re not entirely non-academic (Empires of the Word is literally the history of the world’s languages and equates in my mind to Hermione Granger’s “light reading” of various histories of the magical world. It’s deep stuff, I tell you.) I’m starting The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory this evening, so it’s technically not on my bookcase, but it did occupy the space now taken by The Remains of the Day less than 12 hours ago.

What books occupy your shelves? What is on your imaginary shelf? (I would have to go with a first printing of Harry Potter, the destroyed copy of Shakespeare’s collected works that my aunt and uncle tossed away–meticulously annotated by my grandfather who got a full scholarship to Harvard but fought in WWII, instead–and leather-bound, and an illuminated manuscript.)

Works Cited: robaroundbooks.com

And, yes. That picture of me in my new glasses is coming! I just have to find someone to take my picture when it’s not dreary and awful outside. Hmmm. Maybe over Christmas in Oklahoma where it’s still sunny?